
Class P B i3-ai 

Book . Gc'H 

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COPYRIGHT DEPOSIT. 



By Lady Gregory 



Irish Folk-History Plays 

First Series: The Tragedies 

Grama. Kincora. Dervorgilla 

Second Series: The Tragic Comedies 

The Canavans. The White Cockade. The Deliverer 

New Comedies 

The Bogie Men. The Pull Moon. Coats. Darner's 
Gold. McDonough's Wife 

Our Irish Theatre 

A Chapter of Autobiography 

Seven Short Plays 

Spreading the News. Hyacinth Halvey. The Rising 
of the Moon. The Jackdaw. The Workhouse Ward. 
The Travelling Man. The Gaol Gate 

The Golden Apple 

A Kiltartan Play for Children 

Visions and Beliefs. Two Volumes 

First and Second Series 



THE 
KILTARTAN POETRY BOOK 

PROSE TRANSLATIONS FROM 
THE IRISH 

By LADY GREGORY 




G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK AND LONDON 

Gbe Umfcfeetbocfeer press 

1919 



-tret* 



Gc 



14 



l1 



Copyright, 1919 

BY 

LADY GREGORY 



Ubc ftntcfeerboefcer press, Iftew jgorfc 



FEB I9ibi9 



ICLA51239 9 



Introduction 

I 

If in my childhood I had been asked to give 
the name of an Irish poem, I should certainly 
have said "Let Erin remember the days of old," 
or "Rich and rare were the gems she wore" ; for 
although among the ornamental books that lay 
on the round drawingroom table, the only one 
of Moore's was Lalla Rookh, some guest would 
now and then sing one of his melodies at the 
piano; and I can remember vexing or trying to 
vex my governess by triumphant mention of 
Malachi's collar of gold, she no doubt as well as 
I believing the "proud invader" it was torn 
from to have been, like herself, an English one. 
A little later I came to know other verses, bal- 
lads nearer to the tradition of the country than 

Moore's faint sentiment. For a romantic love of 

3 



4 Introduction 

country had awakened in me, perhaps through 
the wide beauty of my home, from whose hill- 
sides I could see the mountain of Burren and Iar 
Connacht, and at sunset the silver western sea; 
or it maybe through the half revealed sympathy 
of my old nurse for the rebels whose cheering 
she remembered when the French landed at 
Killala in '98; or perhaps but through the na- 
tural breaking of a younger child of the house 
from the conservatism of her elders. So when 
we were taken sometimes as a treat the five mile 
drive to our market town, Loughrea, I would, 
on tiptoe at the counter, hold up the six pence 
earned by saying without a mistake my Bible 
lesson on the Sunday, and the old stationer, 
looking down through his spectacles would 
give me what I wanted saying that I was his 
best customer for Fenian books; and one of 
my sisters, rather doubtfully consenting to my 
choice of The Spirit of the Nation for a birthday 
present, qualified the gift by copying into it 
"Patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel." 



Introduction 5 

I have some of them by me yet, the little books 
in gay paper or in green cloth, and some verses 
in them seem to me no less moving than in those 
early days, such as Davis's lament ■ 

We thought you would not die, we were sure you 

would not go 
And leave us in our utmost need to Cromwell's 

cruel blow; 
Sheep without a shepherd when the snow shuts out 

the sky, 
O why did you leave us Owen ? Why did you die ? 

And if some others are little more than a 
catalogue, unmusical, as: — 

Now to begin to name them I'll continue in a direct 

line, 
There's John Mitchell, Thomas Francis Meagher 

and also William Smith O'Brien; 
John Martin and O'Donoghue, Erin sorely feels 

their loss, 
And to complete their number I will include 

O' Donovan Ross — 

yet there is in them a certain dignity, an in- 
tensity born of continuity of purpose; they are 



6 Introduction 

roughly hammered links in a chain of unequal 
workmanship, but stretching back through the 
centuries to the Munster poets of the days of 
Elizabeth, advised by Spenser to harry them 
out of Ireland. The names change from age to 
age, that is all. The verses of the seventeenth 
century hallow those of Mac Carthys and Fitz- 
geralds who fought for the Stuarts or "knocked 
obedience out of the Gall " ; the eighteenth ended 
with the rebels of '98 ; the nineteenth had Emmet 
and Mitchell and its Manchester martyrs. 
Already in these early days of the twentieth the 
street singers cry out : 

Mac Dermott, Mallin, Hanrahan, Daly, Colbert 

and Mac Bride 
All men who for our country's cause have nobly 

bled and died. 

Even Yeats, falling into the tradition, has put 
in a lyric the names of some of those who died 
in Easter week, and through whose death "a 
terrible beauty is born." 



Introduction 7 

II 

I am glad to remember that through the 
twelve years of our married life, 1880-92, my 
husband and his people were able to keep their 
liking and respect for each other. For those 
were the years of the land war, tenant struggling 
to gain a lasting possession for his children, 
landlord to keep that which had been given in 
trust to him for his; each ready in his anger to 
turn the heritage of the other to desolation; 
while the vision of some went yet farther, 
through breaking to the rebuilding of a nation. 
The passion, the imagination of Ireland were 
thrown into the fight. I often thought to find 
some poem putting such passion into fiery or 
memorable lines. But the first I thought worth 
the keeping, — I have it yet, was Katherine 
Tynan's lament for Parnell, written two years 
after his death. In tearing it from the corner of 
some newspaper I had unwittingly taken note of 
almost the moment of a new impulse in lit- 



8 Introduction 

erature, in poetry. For with that death, the loss 
of that dominant personality, and in the quarrel 
that followed, came the disbanding of an army, 
the unloosing of forces, the setting free of the 
imagination of Ireland. 



Ill 



Once in my childhood I had been eager to 
learn Irish ; I thought to get leave to take lessons 
from an old Scripture-reader who spent a part 
of his time in the parish of Killinane, teaching 
such scholars as he could find to read their own 
language in the hope that they might turn to 
the only book then being printed in Irish, the 
Bible. But my asking, timid with the fear of 
mockery, was unheeded. Yet I missed but by a 
little an opportunity that might have made me 
a real Irish scholar, and not as I am, imperfect, 
stumbling. For a kinsman learned in the 
language, the translator of the wonderful Silva 
Gaedelica had been sometimes a guest in the 



Introduction 9 

house, and would still have been welcomed there 
but that my mother, who had a great dislike to 
the marriage of cousins had fancied he was 
taking a liking to one of my elder sisters ; and 
with that suspicion the " winged nymph, Oppor- 
tunity" had passed from my reach. After my 
marriage I bought a grammar and worked at it 
for a while with the help of a gardener. But 
it was difficult and my teacher was languid, sus- 
pecting it may be some hidden mockery, for 
those were the days before Irish became the 
fashion. It was not till a dozen or more years 
later, and after my husband's death, that my 
son, having won the classical entrance scholar- 
ship at Harrow, took a fancy to learn a nearer 
language, and rode over to Tillyra before break- 
fast one morning to ask our neighbour Edward 
Martyn to help him to a teacher. He came 
back without what he had sought, but with the 
gift of a fine old Irish Bible, which became a 
help in our early lessons. For we set to work 
together, and I found the task a light one in 



io Introduction 

comparison with those first attempts. For that 
young priest, Father Eugene O'Growney, sent 
from Ireland to look for health in California, 
had used the short space of life left to him in 
writing simple lessons in Irish grammar, that 
made at least the first steps easy. And another 
thing had happened. Dr. Douglas Hyde, An 
Craoibhin, had founded the Gaelic League, and 
through it country people were gathered to- 
gether in the Irish speaking places to give the 
songs and poems, old and new, kept in their 
memory. This discovery, this disclosure of the 
folk learning, the folk poetry, the ancient tradi- 
tion, was the small beginning of a weighty 
change. It was an upsetting of the table of 
values, an astonishing excitement. The imagi- 
nation of Ireland had found a new homing 
place. 

IV 

My own imagination was aroused. I was 
becoming conscious of a world close to me and 



Introduction 1 1 

that I had been ignorant of. It was not now 
in the corners of newspapers I looked for poetic 
emotion, nor even to the singers in the streets. 
It was among farmers and potato diggers and 
old men in workhouses and beggars at my own 
door that I found what was beyond these and 
yet farther beyond that drawingroom poet of 
my childhood in the expression of love, and 
grief, and the pain of parting, that are the dis- 
closure of the individual soul. 

An Aran man, repeating to me The Grief of a 
Girl's Heart in Irish told me it was with that 
song his mother had often sung him to sleep as a 
child. It was from an old woman who had 
known Mary Hynes and who said of her ''The 
sun and the moon never shone upon anything so 
handsome" that I first heard Raftery's song of 
praise of her, "The pearl that was at Bally lee, " 
a song "that has gone around the world & as 
far as America." It was in a stonecutter's 
house where I went to have a headstone made 
for Raftery's grave that I found a manuscript 



12 Introduction 

book of his poems, written out in the clear 
beautiful Irish characters. It was to a working 
farmer's house I walked on many a moonlit 
evening with the manuscript that his greater 
knowledge helped me to understand and by his 
hearth that I read for the first time the Vision 
of Death and the Lament for O'Daly. After 
that I met with many old people who had in the 
days before the Famine seen or talked with the 
wandering poet who was in the succession of 
those who had made and recited their lyrics on 
the Irish roads before Chaucer wrote. 



And so I came by the road nearest me to the 
old legends, the old heroic poems. It was a man 
of a hundred years who told me the story of 
Cuchulain's fight with his own son, the son of 
Aoife, and how the young man as he lay dying 
had reproached him and said ' ' Did you not see 
how I threw every spear fair and easy at you, 



Introduction 13 

and you threw your spear hard and wicked at 
me? And I did not come out to tell my name 
to one or to two but if I had told it to anyone 
in the whole world, I would soonest tell it 
to your pale face." Deirdre's beauty "that 
brought the Sons of Usnach to their death" 
comes into many of the country songs. Grania 
of the yet earlier poems is not so well thought of. 
An old basket-maker said scornfully "Many 
would tell you she slept under the cromlechs 
but I don't believe that, and she a king's daugh- 
ter. And I don't believe she was handsome, 
either. If she was, why would she have run 
away?" And another said "Finn had more 
wisdom than all the men of the world, but he 
wasn't wise enough to put a bar on Grania." 
I was told in many places of Osgar's bravery and 
Goll's strength and Conan's bitter tongue, and 
the arguments of Oisin and Patrick. And I 
have often been given the story of Oisin 's jour- 
ney to Tir-nan-Og, the Country of the Young, 
that is, as I am told, "a fine place and every- 



14 Introduction 

thing that is good is in it. And if anyone is sent 
there for a minute he will want to stop in it, and 
twenty years will seem to him like one half 
hour;" and "they say Tir-nan-Og is there yet, 
and so it may be in any place." 



VI 



In the ancient times the poets told of this 
Country of the Young, with its trees bearing 
fruit and blossom at the one time; its golden 
apples that gave lasting life; its armies "that 
go out in good order, ahead of their beautiful 
king, marching among blue spears scattering 
their enemies, an army with high looks, rushing, 
avenging;" before news had come to Ireland, 
of the Evangelist's vision of the Tree of Life 
and of the "white horse, and he that sat on him 
had a bow, and a crown was given to him, and 
he went forth conquering and to conquer." 
They had told of the place "where delight is 
common, and music" before saintly Columcille 



Introduction 15 

on the night of the Sabbath of rest "reached to 
the troops of the archangels and the plain where 
music has not to be born." But in later days 
religion, while offering abundant pictures of an 
after world of punishment, "the flagstone of 
pain," "the cauldron that is boiling for ever," 
the fire the least flame of which is "bigger than 
fifteen hundred of turf," so that Oisin listening 
to St. Patrick demands a familiar weapon, an 
iron flail, to beat down such familiar terrors, 
has left Heaven itself far off, mysterious, in- 
tangible, without earthly similes or foreshadow- 
ings. I think it is perhaps because of this that 
the country poets of to-day and yesterday have 
put their dream, their vision of the Delectable 
Mountains, of the Land of Promise, into exag- 
gerated praise of places dear to them. Raftery 
sees something beyond the barren Mayo bogs 
when he tells of that "fine place without fog 
falling, a blessed place that the sun shines on, 
and the wind does not rise there or anything of 
the sort, " and where as he says in another poem 



16 Introduction 

"logwood and mahogany" grow in company 
with its wind twisted beech and storm bent 
sycamore. Even my own home "sweet Coole 
demesne" has been transfigured in songs of the 
neighbourhood; and a while ago an old woman 
asking alms at the door while speaking of a 
monastery near Athenry broke into a chant of 
praise that has in it perhaps some memory of 
the Well of Healing at the world's end that 
helped the gods to new strength in their great 
battle at Moytura. "Three barrels there are 
with water, and to see the first barrel boiling it is 
certain you will get a cure. Water there does 
be rushing down ; you to stop you could hear it 
talking ; to go there you would get cured of any- 
thing unless it might be the stroke of the Fool." 



VII 



In translating these poems I have chosen to 
do so in the speech of the thatched houses where 
I have heard and gathered them. An Craoibhin 



Introduction 17 

had already used this Gaelic construction, these 
Elizabethan phrases, in translating the Love 
Songs of Connacht, as I have used it even in my 
creative work. Synge had not yet used it when 
he found in my Cuchulain of Muirthemne "the 
dialect he had been trying to master," and of 
which he afterwards made such splendid use. 
Most of the translations in this book have al- 
ready been printed in Cuchulain of Muirthemne, 
Gods and Fighting Men, Saints and Wonders, 
and Poets and Dreamers. When in the first 
month of the new year I began to choose from 
among them, it seemed strange to me that the 
laments so far outnumbered any songs of joy. 
But before that month was out news was 
brought to me that made the keening of women 
for the brave and of those who are left lonely 
after the young seem to be but the natural out- 
come and expression of human life. 

Augusta Gregory. 

Coole, May, 191 8. 



Contents 



The Grief of a Girl's Heart 

A Lament for Fair-haired Donough 

that was Hanged in Galway 
Raftery's Praise of Mary Hynes 
His Lament for O'Daly 
His Praise of the Little Hill and the 

Plains of Mayo .... 
His Lament for O'Kelly 
His Vision of Death 
His Repentance .... 
His Answer when Some Stranger Asked 

who he Was .... 
A Blessing on Patrick Sarsfield . 
An Aran Maid's Wedding 
A Poem Written in Time of Trouble by 

an Irish Priest who had Taken Orders 

in France ...... 

The Heart of the Wood 

An Craoibhin Complains because he Is 

a Poet ...... 

He Cries out against Love 
He Meditates on the Life of a Rich Man 

19 



PAGE 
23 

27 
31 

34 

37 
39 
41 

43 

44 
45 
48 



50 
53 

54 
56 
57 



20 



Contents 



Forgaill's Praise of Columcille 
The Deer's Cry 

The Hymn of Molling's Guest, the Man 

Full of Trouble 
The Hag of Beare 
The Seven Heavens 
The Journey of the Sun 
The Nature of the Stars 
The Call to Bran . 
The Army of the Sidhe . 

Credhe's Complaint at the Battle of the 
White Strand 

A Sleepy Song that Grania Used to be 
Singing over Diarmuid the Time they 
were Wandering and Hiding from Finn 

Her Song to Rouse him from Sleep 

Her Lament for his Death . 

The Parting of Goll and his Wife 

The Death of Osgar .... 

Oisin's Vision . . 

His Praise of Finn .... 

Oisin after the Fenians 

The Foretelling of Cathbad the Druid 
at Deirdre's Birth .... 
Deirdre's Lament for the Sons of Usnach 
Emer's Lament for Cuchulain 



PAGE 

59 
63 

66 
68 
72 
73 
75 
77 
80 

82 

85 
87 
88 

91 
94 
97 
98 
100 

103 

105 
no 



THE KILTARTAN POETRY BOOK 



The Grief of a Girl's Heart 

ODONALL og, if you go across the sea, 
bring myself with you and do not for- 
get it ; and you will have a sweetheart 
for fair days and market days, and the daughter 
of the King of Greece beside you at night. It 
is late last night the dog was speaking of you ; 
the snipe was speaking of you in her deep marsh. 
It is you are the lonely bird through the woods ; 
and that you may be without a mate until you 
find me. 

You promised me, and you said a lie to me, 
that you would be before me where the sheep 
are flocked ; I gave a whistle and three hundred 
cries to you, and I found nothing there but a 
bleating lamb. 

You promised me a thing that was hard for 
23 



24 The Grief of a Girl's Heart 

you, a ship of gold under a silver mast; twelve 
towns with a market in all of them, and a fine 
white court by the side of the sea. 

You promised me a thing that is not possible, 
that you would give me gloves of the skin of a 
fish ; that you would give me shoes of the skin of 
a bird, and a suit of the dearest silk in Ireland. 

O Donall og, it is I would be better to you 
than a high, proud, spendthrift lady: I would 
milk the cow; I would bring help to you; and if 
you were hard pressed, I would strike a blow 
for you. 

O, ochone, and it's not with hunger or with 
wanting food, or drink, or sleep, that I am grow- 
ing thin, and my life is shortened; but it is the 
love of a young man has withered me away. 

It is early in the morning that I saw him 
coming, going along the road on the back of a 
horse; he did not come to me; he made nothing 
of me ; and it is on my way home that I cried my 
fill. 

When I go by myself to the Well of Loneliness, 



The Grief of a Girl's Heart 25 

I sit down and I go through my trouble; when 
I see the world and do not see my boy, he that 
has an amber shade in his hair. 

It was on that Sunday I gave my love to you ; 
the Sunday that is last before Easter Sunday. 
And myself on my knees reading the Passion; 
and my two eyes giving love to you for ever. 

O, ay a! my mother, give myself to him; and 
give him all that you have in the world ; get out 
yourself to ask for alms, and do not come back 
and forward looking for me. 

My mother said to me not to be talking with 
you to-day, or to-morrow, or on the Sunday ; it 
was a bad time she took for telling me that; it 
was shutting the door after the house was 
robbed. 

My heart is as black as the blackness of the 
sloe, or as the black coal that is on the smith's 
forge ; or as the sole of a shoe left in white halls ; 
it was you put that darkness over my life. 

You have taken the east from me; you have 
taken the west from me; you have taken what 



26 The Grief of a Girl's Heart 

is before me and what is behind me ; you have 
taken the moon, you have taken the sun from 
me; and my fear is great that you have taken 
God from me ! 



A Lament for FainHaired Donough 
that was Hanged in Galway 

IT was bound fast here you saw him, and 
wondered to see him, 
Our fair-haired Donough, and he after 
being condemned; 
There was a little white cap on him in place of 

a hat, 
And a hempen rope in the place of a neck- 
cloth. 

I am after walking here all through the night, 

Like a young lamb in a great flock of sheep ; 

My breast open, my hair loosened out, 

And how did I find my brother but stretched 

before me ! 

27 



28 A Lament for Donough 

The first place I cried my fill was at the top of 
the lake ; 

The second place was at the foot of the gal- 
lows ; 

The third place was at the head of your dead 
body 

Among the Gall, and my own head as if cut in 
two. 



If you were with me in the place you had a right 

to be, 
Down in Sligo or down in Ballinrobe, 
It is the gallows would be broken, it is the rope 

would be cut 
And fair-haired Donough going home by the 

path. 

O fair-haired Donough, it is not the gallows 

was fit for you ; 
But to be going to the barn, to be threshing 

out the straw ; 



Jl Lament for Donough 29 

To be turning the plough to the right hand and 
to the left, 

To be putting the red side of the soil upper- 
most. 

O fair-haired Donough, O dear brother, 

It is well I know who it was took you away from 

me; 
Drinking from the cup, putting a light to the 

pipe, 
And walking in the dew in the cover of the night. 

Michael Malley, O scourge of misfortune ! 
My brother was no calf of a vagabond cow ; 
But a well-shaped boy on a height or a hillside, 
To knock a low pleasant sound out of a hurling- 

stick. 

And fair-haired Donough, is not that the pity, 
You that would carry well a spur or a boot ; 

1 would put clothes in the fashion on you from 

cloth that would be lasting ; 
I would send you out like a gentleman's son. 



30 A Lament for Donough 

Michael Malley, may your sons never be in 
one another's company; 

May your daughters never ask a marriage por- 
tion of you ; 

The two ends of the table are empty, the house 
is filled, 

And fair-haired Donough, my brother, is 
stretched out. 

There is a marriage portion coming home for 

Donough, 
But it is not cattle or sheep or horses ; 
But tobacco and pipes and white candles, 
And it will not be begrudged to them that will 

use it. 



Raftery's Praise of Mary Hynes 

GOING to Mass by the will of God, the 
day came wet and the wind rose ; I met 
Mary Hynes at the cross of Kiltar- 
tan, and I fell in love with her there and then. 
I spoke to her kind and mannerly, as by 
report was her own way ; and she said ' ' Raf tery 
my mind is easy; you may come to-day to 
Ballylee." 

When I heard her offer I did not linger; when 
her talk went to my heart my heart rose. We 
had only to go across the three fields; we had 
daylight with us to Ballylee. 

The table was laid with glasses and a quart 
measure ; she had fair hair and she sitting beside 
me ; and she said, ' ' Drink, Raf tery , and a hundred 
welcomes; there is a strong cellar in Ballylee." 

31 



32 Haftery's Praise of Mary Hynes 

star of light and O sun in harvest ; O amber 
hair, my share of the world ! Will you come 
with me on the Sunday, till we agree together 
before all the people ? 

1 would not begrudge you a song every Sun- 
day evening ; punch on the table or wine if you 
would drink it. But O King of Glory, dry the 
roads before me till I find the way to Ballylee. 

There is sweet air on the side of the hill, when 
you are looking down upon Ballylee; when you 
are walking in the valley picking nuts and black- 
berries, there is music of the birds in it and 
music of the Sidhe. 

What is the worth of greatness till you have 
the light of the flower of the branch that is by 
your side? There is no good to deny it or to 
try and hide it ; she is the sun in the heavens who 
wounded my heart. 

There was no part in Ireland I did not travel, 
from the rivers to the tops of the mountains ; to 
the edge of Lough Greine whose mouth is hidden, 
and I saw no beauty but was behind hers. 



Raftery's Praise of Mary Hynes 33 

Her hair was shining and her brows were 
shining too ; her face was like herself, her mouth 
pleasant and sweet ; She is the pride and I give 
her the branch; she is the shining flower of 
Ballylee. 

It is Mary Hynes, the calm and easy woman, 
has beauty in her mind and in her face. If a 
hundred clerks were gathered together, they 
could not write down a half of her ways. 



His Lament for O'Daly 

IT was Thomas O'Daly that roused up young 
people and scattered them, and since 
death played on him, may God give him 
grace. The country is all sorrowful, always 
talking, since their man of sport died that 
would win the goal in all parts with his music. 
The swans on the water are nine times blacker 
than a blackberry since the man died from us 
that had pleasantness on the top of his fingers. 
His two grey eyes were like the dew of the morn- 
ing that lies on the grass. And since he was laid 
in the grave, the cold is getting the upper hand. 
If you travel the five provinces, you would 
not find his equal for countenance or behaviour, 
for his equal never walked on land or grass. 
High King of Nature, you who have all powers 

34 



His Lament for O'Daly 35 

in yourself, he that wasn't narrow-hearted, give 
him shelter in heaven for it ! 

He was the beautiful branch. In every quar- 
ter that he ever knew he would scatter his fill 
and not gather. He would spend the estate of 
the Dalys, their beer and their wine. And that 
he may be sitting in the chair of grace, in the 
middle of Paradise ! 

A sorrowful story on death, it's he is the ugly 
chief that did treachery, that didn't give him 
credit, O strong God, for a little time. 

There are young women, and not without 
reason, sorry and heart-broken and withered, 
since he was left at the church. Their hair 
thrown down and hanging, turned grey on their 
head. 

No flower in any garden, and the leaves of the 
trees have leave to cry, and they falling on the 
ground. There is no green flower on the tops 
of the tufts, since there did a boarded coffin go 
on Daly. 

There is sorrow on the men of mirth, a cloud- 



36 His Lament for O'Daly 

ing over the day, and no trout swim in the river. 
Orpheus on the harp, he lifted up everyone out 
of their habits; and he that stole what Argus 
was watching the time he took away Io ; Apollo, 
as we read, gave them teaching, and Daly was 
better than all these musicians. 

A hundred wouldn't be able to put together 
his actions and his deeds and his many good 
works. And Raftery says this much for Daly, 
because he liked him. 



His Praise of the Little Hill and the 
Plains of Mayo 

AFTER the Christmas, with the help of 
Christ, I will never stop if I am alive; 
I will go to the sharp-edged little hill ; 
for it is a fine place without fog falling ; a blessed 
place that the sun shines on, and the wind 
doesn't rise there or anything of the sort. 

And if you were a year there you would get 
no rest, only sitting up at night and forever 
drinking. 

The lamb and the sheep are there; the cow 
and the calf are there, fine lands are there with- 
out heath and without bog. Ploughing & seed- 
sowing in the right month, plough and harrow 
prepared and ready; the rent that is called for 

37 



38 His Praise of the Little Hill 

there, they have means to pay it. There is oats 
and flax & large eared barley. There are beauti- 
ful valleys with good growth in them and hay. 
Rods grow there, and bushes and tufts, white 
fields are there and respect for trees ; shade and 
shelter from wind and rain; priests and friars 
reading their book; spending and getting is 
there, and nothing scarce. 

I leave it in my will that my heart rises as the 
wind rises, and as the fog scatters, when I think 
upon Carra and the two towns below it, on the 
two-mile bush and on the plains of Mayo. And 
if I were standing in the middle of my people, 
age would go from me and I would be young 
again. 



His Lament for O'KeUy 

THERE'S no dew or grass on Cluafi 
Leathan. The cuckoo is not to be 
seen on the furze; the leaves are 
withering and the trees complaining of the cold. 
There is no sun or moon in the air or in the 
sky, or no light in the stars coming down, with 
the stretching of O' Kelly in the grave. 

My grief to tell it ! he to be laid low ; the man 
that did not bring grief or trouble on any heart, 
that would give help to those that were down. 
No light on the day like there was; the fruits 
not growing; no children on the breast; there's 
no return in the grain; the plants don't blossom 
as they used since O' Kelly with the fair hair 
went away; he that used to forgive us a great 
share of the rent. Since the children of Usnach 

39 



40 His Lament for O'l^elly 

and Deirdre went to the grave, and Cuchulain, 
who as the stories tell us, would gain victory in 
every step he would take ; since he died, such a 
story never came of sorrow or defeat ; since the 
Gael were sold at Aughrim, and since Owen Roe 
died, the Branch. 



Wis Vision of Death 

I HAD a vision in my sleep last night be- 
tween sleeping and waking. A figure 
standing beside me, thin, miserable, sad 
and sorrowful; the shadow of night upon his 
face, the tracks of the tears down his cheeks. 
His ribs were bending like the bottom of a 
riddle; his nose thin that it would go through 
a cambric needle; his shoulders hard and sharp 
that they would cut tobacco ; his head dark and 
bushy like the top of a hill ; and there is nothing 
I can liken his fingers to. His poor bones with- 
out any kind of covering ; a withered rod in his 
hand, and he looking in my face. . . . 

Death is a robber who heaps together kings, 
high princes and country lords; he brings with 
him the great, the young, and the wise, gripping 

41 



42 His Vision of Death 

them by the throat before all the people. Look 
at him who was yesterday swift & strong, who 
would leap stone wall, ditch and gap. Who was 
in the evening walking the street, and is going 
under the clay on the morrow. 

It is a pity for him that is tempted with the 
temptations of the world; and the store that 
will go with him is so weak, and his lease of life 
no better if he were to live for a thousand years 
than just as if he had slipped over on a visit and 
back again. 

When you are going to lie down don't be 
dumb. Bare your knee and bruise the ground. 
Think of all the deeds that you put by you, and 
that you are travelling towards the meadow of 
the dead. 



His Repentance 

OKING who art in Heaven, I scream 
to Thee again and aloud, for it is Thy 
grace I am hoping for. 

I am in age and my shape is withered; many 
a day I have been going astray. When I was 
young my deeds were evil ; I delighted greatly in 
quarrels and rows. I liked much better to be 
playing or drinking on a Sunday morning than 
to be going to Mass. I was given to great oaths, 
and I did not let lust or drunkenness pass me by. 

The day has stolen away and I have not raised 
the hedge, until the crop in which Thou didst 
take delight is destroyed. I am a worthless 
stake in the corner of a hedge, or I am like a 
boat that has lost its rudder, that would be 
broken against a rock in the sea, and that would 
be drowned in the cold waves. 



43 



His Answer when Some Stranger 
Asked who He was 

I AM Raftery the poet, full of hope and 
love; my eyes without light, my gentle- 
ness without misery. Going west on my 
journey with the light of my heart ; weak and 
tired to the end of my road. 

I am now, and my back to a wall, playing 
music to empty pockets. 



44 



A Blessing on Patrick Sarsfield 

O PATRICK SARSFIELD, health be to 
you, since you went to France and 
your camps were loosened; making 
your sighs along with the king, and you left poor 
Ireland and the Gael defeated — Och ochone ! O 
Patrick Sarsfield, it is a man with God you are; 
and blessed is the earth you ever walked on. 
The blessing of the bright sun and the moon 
upon you, since you took the day from the 
hands of King William — Och ochone ! 

O Patrick Sarsfield, the prayer of every person 
with you ; my own prayer and the prayer of the 
Son of Mary with you, since you took the narrow 
ford going through Biorra, and since at Cuilenn 
O'Cuanac you won Limerick — Och ochone! 

45 



46 A Blessing on Patrick Sarsfield 

I will go up on the mountain alone ; and I will 
come hither from it again. It is there I saw the 
camp of the Gael, the poor troop thinned, not 
keeping with one another — Och ochone! 

My five hundred healths to you, halls of 
Limerick, and to the beautiful troop was in our 
company; it is bonefires we used to have and 
playing-cards, and the word of God was often 
with us — Och ochone! 

There were many soldiers glad and happy, 
that were going the way through seven weeks; 
but now they are stretched down in Aughrim — 
Och ochone ! 

They put the first breaking on us at the bridge 
of the Boyne ; the second breaking on the bridge 
of Slaine; the third breaking in Aughrim of 
O' Kelly; and O sweet Ireland, my five hundred 
healths to you — Och ochone ! 

O' Kelly has manuring for his land, that is not 
sand or dung, but ready soldiers doing bravery 
with pikes, that were left in Aughrim stretched 
in ridges — Och ochone ! 



Jl Blessing on Patrick Sarsfield 47 

Who is that beyond on the hill, Ben Edair? I 
a poor soldier with King James. I was last year 
in arms and in dress, but this year I am asking 
alms — Och ochone! 



Jin Aran Maid's Wedding 

I AM widow and maid, and I very young; 
did you hear my great grief, that my 
treasure was drowned ? If I had been in 
the boat that day, and my hand on the rope, 
my word to you, O'Reilly, it is I would have 
saved you sorrow. 

Do you remember the day the street was full 
of riders, and of priests and brothers, and all 
talking of the wedding feast? The fiddle was 
there in the middle, and the harp answering to 
it; and twelve mannerly women to bring my 
love to his bed; 

But you were of those three that went across 

to Kilcomin, ferrying Father Peter, who was 

three-and-eighty years old; if you came back 

within a month itself, I would be well content ; 

4 8 



An Aran Maid's Wedding 49 

but is it not a pity I to be lonely, and my first 
love in the waves ? 

I would not begrudge you, O'Reilly, to be 
kinsman to a king; white bright courts around 
you, and you lying at your ease; a quiet, well- 
learned lady to be settling out your pillow; but 
it is a great thing you to die from me when I had 
given you my love entirely. 

It is no wonder a broken heart to be with your 
father and your mother; the white-breasted 
mother that crooned you, and you a baby ; your 
wedded wife, O thousand treasures, that never 
set out your bed; and the day you went to 
Trabawn, how well it failed you to come home. 

Your eyes are with the eels, and your lips 
with the crabs ; and your two white hands under 
the sharp rule of the salmon. Five pounds I 
would give to him that would find my true love. 
Ochone! it is you are a sharp grief to young 
Mary ni-Curtain ! 



A Poem Written in Time of Trouble 
by an Irish Priest who Had Taken 
Orders in France 



M 



Y thoughts, my grief ! are without 

strength 

My spirit is journeying towards 
death 

My eyes are as a frozen sea 

My tears my daily food ; 

There is nothing in life but only misery. 

My poor heart is torn 

And my thoughts are sharp wounds within me, 

Mourning the miserable state of Ireland. 

Misfortune has come upon us all together 

The poor, the rich, the weak and the strong 

50 



Poem Written by an Irish Priest 51 

The great lord by whom hundreds were main- 
tained 

The powerful strong man, and the man that 
holds the plough ; 

And the cross laid on the bare shoulder of every 
man. 

Our feasts are without any voice of priests 
And none at them but women lamenting 
Tearing their hair with troubled minds 
Keening miserably after the Fenians. 

The pipes of our organs are broken 

Our harps have lost their strings that were 

tuned 
That might have made the great lamentations of 

Ireland. 
Until the strong men come back across the sea 
There is no help for us but bitter crying, 
Screams, and beating of hands, and calling out. 

I do not know of anything under the sky 
That is friendly or favourable to the Gael 



52 Poem Written by an Irish Priest 

But only the sea that our need brings us to. 
Or the wind that blows to the harbour 
The ship that is bearing us away from Ireland ; 
And there is reason that these are reconciled 

with us, 
For we increase the sea with our tears 
And the wandering wind with our sighs. 



The Heart of the Wood 

MY hope and my love, we will go for a 
while into the wood, scattering the 
dew, where we will see the trout, 
we will see the blackbird on its nest ; the deer 
and the buck calling, the little bird that is 
sweetest singing on the branches ; the cuckoo on 
the top of the fresh green ; and death will never 
come near us for ever in the sweet wood. 



53 



An Craolbhin Complains Because 
He is a Poet 

IT'S my grief that I am not a little white 
duck, 
And I'd swim over the sea to France or 
to Spain; 
I would not stay in Ireland for one week only, 
To be without eating, without drinking, with- 
out a full jug. 

Without a full jug, without eating, without 

drinking, 
Without a feast to get, without wine, without 

meat, 
Without high dances, without a big name, 

without music; 

There is hunger on me, and I astray this long 

time. 

54 



An Craoibhin Complains 55 

It's my grief that I am not an old crow ; 
I would sit for awhile up on the old branch ; 
I could satisfy my hunger, and I not as I am 
With a grain of oats or a white potato. 

It's my grief that I am not a red fox, 
Leaping strong and swift on the mountains, 
Eating cocks and hens without pity, 
Taking ducks and geese as a conquerer. 

It's my grief that I am not a bright salmon, 
Going through the strong full water, 
Catching the mayflies by my craft, 
Swimming at my choice, and swimming with 
the stream. 

It's my grief that I am of the race of the poets ; 
It would be better for me to be a high rock, 
Or a stone or a tree or an herb or a flower 
Or anything at all but the thing that I am ! 




He Cries Out Against Love 

THERE are three fine devils eating my 
heart — 
They left me, my grief ! without a thing ; 
Sickness wrought, and Love wrought, 
And an empty pocket, my ruin and my woe. 
Poverty left me without a shirt, 
Barefooted, barelegged, without any covering; 
Sickness left me with my head weak 
And my body miserable, an ugly thing. 
Love left me like a coal upon the floor, 
Like a half -burned sod that is never put out. 
Worse than the cough, worse than the fever 

itself, 
Worse than any curse at all under the sun, 
Worse than the great poverty 
Is the devil that is called "Love" by the people. 
And if I were in my young youth again 
I would not take, or give, or ask for a kiss ! 



56 



He Meditates on the Life of a 
Rich Man 



A 



GOLDEN cradle under you, and you 

young; 
A right mother and a strong kiss. 



A lively horse, and you a boy; 

A school and learning and close companions. 

A beautiful wife, and you a man; 

A wide house and everything that is good. 

A fine wife, children, substance; 
Cattle, means, herds and flocks. 

A place to sit, a place to lie down; 
Plenty of food and plenty of drink. 

57 



58 Meditates on a Rich Man's Life 

After that, an old man among old men ; 
Respect on you and honour on you. 

Head of the court, of the jury, of the meeting, 
And the counsellors not the worse for having 
you. 

At the end of your days death, and then 
Hiding away; the boards and the church. 

What are you better after to-night 
Than Ned the beggar or Seaghan the fool ? 



Forgaill's Praise of Columcille 

THIS now is the poem of praise and of 
lamentation that was made for Colum- 
cille, Speckled Salmon of the Boyne, 
High Saint of the Gael, by Forgaill that was 
afterwards called Blind Forgaill, Chief Poet of 
Ireland : 

It is not a little story this is ; it is not a story 
about a fool it is; it is not one district that is 
keening but every district, with a great sound 
that is not to be borne, hearing the story of 
Columcille, without life, without a church. 

It is not the trouble of one house, or the grief 
of one harp-string; all the plains are heavy, 
hearing the word that is a wound. 

What way will a simple man tell of him? 
Even Nera from the Sidhe could not do it ; he is 

59 



60 Forgaill's Praise of Columcille 

not made much of now; our learned one is not 
the light of our life, now he is hidden away from 
us. 

He that used to keep us living is dead ; he that 
was our rightful head has died from us; he has 
died from us that was God's messenger. 

The knowledgeable man that used to put fear 
from us is not here ; the teller of words does not 
return to us; the teacher is gone from us that 
taught silence to the people. 

The whole world was his ; it is a harp without 
its strings ; it is a church without its abbot. 

Colum rose very high the time God's com- 
panies rose to meet him; it is bright the angels 
were, attending on him. 

It is short his life was, it is little used to 
satisfy him; when the wind blew the sheet 
against him on the sand, the shape of his ribs 
could be seen through it. He was the head of 
every gathering; he was a dun of the book of 
the law; he put a flame in the district of the 
north, he lightened the district of the west ; the 



ForgaiU's Praise of Columcille 61 



east was his along with it; he did not open his 
heart to every company. Good his death; he 
went with God's angels that came to meet him. 

He has reached to Axal of his help and to the 
troops of the archangels; he has reached to a 
place where night is not seen ; he has reached to a 
plain where music has not to be born ; where no 
one listens to oppression. The King of priests 
has done away with his troubles. 

He knew the way he was going ; he gave kind- 
ness for hatred ; he learned psalms ; he broke the 
battle against hunger. 

He knew seasons and storms; he read the 
secrets of the great wisdom ; he knew the course 
of the moon ; he took notice of its race with the 
branching sun. He was skilful in the course of 
the sea; to tell every high thing we have heard 
from Colum, would be to count the stars of 
heaven. 

A healer of the heart of the wise; a full satisfier 
of guests; our crowned one who spoke with 
Axal ; a shelter to the naked ; a comforter to the 



62 Forgaill's Praise of Columcille 

poor; he was eager, he was noble, it is high his 
death was. We hope great honour will be given 
to him on the head of these deeds. 

And when Forgaill had made that lament he 
said, "It is a great shaping and a great finish I 
have given to these words, and I cannot make a 
praise beyond this, for my eyes have been taken 
from me." 

It was Aodh, King of Ireland gave seven 
cumhals for his name to be given in the praising 
of Columcille ; and Aodh laid it down to Forgaill 
that this song should be above every other song. 

But it was after death the reward and the 
praise were given to blind Forgaill for it was 
Heaven that was given to him as the price of the 
praising of the King. 



The Deer's Cry 

BLESSED Patrick made this hymn one 
time he was going to preach the Faith 
at Teamhuir, and his enemies lay in 
hiding to make an attack on him as he passed. 
But all they could see passing as he himself and 
Benen his servant went by, was a wild deer and 
a fawn. And the Deer's Cry is the name of the 
hymn to this day. 

I bind myself to-day to a strong strength, to a 
calling on the Trinity. I believe in a Threeness 
with confession of a Oneness in the Creator of 
the World. 

I bind myself to-day to the strength of 

Christ's birth and His baptism; to the strength 

of His crucifixion with His burial ; to the strength 

of His resurrection with His ascension; 

63 



64 The Deer's Cry 

In stability of earth, in steadfastness of rock, 
I bind to myself to-day God's strength to pilot 
me; 

God's power to uphold me; God's wisdom to 
guide me; God's eye to look before me; God's 
ear to hear me; 

God's word to speak for me; God's hand to 
guard me; God's path to lie before me; God's 
shield to protect me; God's host to save me; 

Against snares of demons; against the begging 
of sins ; against the asking of nature ; against all 
my ill-wishers near me and far from me; alone 
and in a crowd. 

So I have called on all these strengths to come 
between me and every fierce and merciless 
strength that may come between my body and 
my soul ; 

Against incantations of false prophets ; against 
black laws of heathens; against false laws of 
heretics ; against craft of idolatry ; against spells 
of women & smiths and druids; against every 
knowledge forbidden to the souls of men. 



The Deer's Cry 65 

Christ for my protection to-day against 
poison, against burning, against drowning, 
against wounding; that a multitude of rewards 
may come to me. Christ with me, Christ before 
me; Christ behind me, Christ in me; Christ 
under me, Christ over me; Christ to the right of 
me, Christ to the left of me; Christ in lying 
down, Christ in sitting, Christ in rising up; 

Christ in the heart of everyone that thinks of 
me; Christ in the mouth of everyone that speaks 
to me; Christ in every eye that sees me; Christ 
in every ear that hears me. 

I bind to myself to-day a strong strength to a 
calling upon the Trinity ; I believe in a Threeness 
with confession of a Oneness in the Creator of 
the World. 



The Hymn of Motling's Guest, 
The Man full of Trouble 

HE is clean gold, he is Heaven about the 
sun, he is a silver vessel having wine 
in it; he is an angel, he is the wis- 
dom of saints ; everyone that is doing the will 
of the King. 

He is a bird with a trap closing about him; 
he is a broken ship in great danger; he is an 
empty vessel, he is a withered tree; he that is 
not doing the will of the King. 

He is a sweet-smelling branch with its 
blossoms; he is a vessel that is full of honey; he 
is a shining stone of good luck ; he who does the 
will of the Son of God of Heaven. 

He is a blind nut without profit; he is ill- 

66 



The Hymn of Molling's Guest 67 



smelling rottenness, he is a withered tree ; he is 
a wild apple branch without blossom ; he that is 
not doing the will of the King. 

If he does the will of the Son of God of Heaven, 
he is a bright sun 'with summer about it ; he is 
the image of the God of Heaven ; he is a vessel 
of clear glass. 

He is a racehorse over a smooth plain, the 
man that is striving for the kingdom of the great 
God; he is a chariot that is seen under a king, 
that wins the victory with golden bridles. 

He is a sun that warms high heaven ; the king 
to whom the great King is thankful; he is a 
church, joyful, noble; he is a shrine having gold 
about it. 

He is an altar having wine poured upon it; 
having many quires singing around; he is a 
clean chalice with ale in it ; he is bronze, white, 
shining, he is gold. 



The Hag of Beare 

IT is of Corca Dubhne she was, and she had 
her youth seven times over, and every 
man that had lived with her died of old 
age, and her grandsons and great-grandsons were 
tribes and races. And through a hundred years 
she wore upon her head the veil Cuimire had 
blessed. Then age and weakness came upon 
her and it is what she said : 

Ebb-tide to me as to the sea; old age brings 
me reproach; I used to wear a shift that was 
always new; to-day, I have not even a cast 
one. 

It is riches you are loving, it is not men; 
it was men we loved in the time we were 
living. 

There were dear men on whose plains we used 

68 



The Hag of Bedre 69 

to be driving ; it is good the time we passed with 
them ; it is little we were broken afterwards. 

When my arms are seen it is long and thin 
they are; once they used to be fondling, they 
used to be around great kings. 

The young girls give a welcome to Beltaine 
when it comes to them; sorrow is more fitting 
for me; an old pitiful hag. 

I have no pleasant talk; no sheep are killed 
for my wedding ; it is little but my hair is grey ; 
it is many colours I had over it when I used to 
be drinking good ale. 

I have no envy against the old, but only 
against women; I myself am spent with old 
age, while women's heads are still yellow. 

The stone of the kings on Feman ; the chair of 
Ronan in Bregia; it is long since storms have 
wrecked them, they are old mouldering grave- 
stones. 

The wave of the great sea is speaking; the 
winter is striking us with it; I do not look to 
welcome to-day Fermuid son of Mugh. 



70 The Hag of Beare 

I know what they are doing ; they are rowing 
through the reeds of the ford of Alma ; it is cold 
is the place where they sleep. 

The summer of youth where we were has been 
spent along with its harvest; winter age that 
drowns everyone, its beginning has come upon 
me. 

It is beautiful was my green cloak, my king 
liked to see it on me; it is noble was the man 
that stirred it, he put wool on it when it was 
bare. 

Amen, great is the pity; every acorn has to 
drop. After feasting with shining candles, to be 
in the darkness of a prayer-house. 

I was once living with kings, drinking mead 
and wine; to-day I am drinking whey-water 
among withered old women. 

There are three floods that come up to the 
dun of Ard-Ruide: a flood of fighting-men, a 
flood of horses, a flood of the hounds of Lu- 
gaidh's son. 

The flood-wave and the two swift ebb-tides ; 



The Hag of Beare 71 

what the flood-wave brings you in, the ebb- 
wave sweeps out of your hand. 

The flood- wave and the second ebb-tide; they 
have all come as far as me, the way that I know 
them well. 

The flood-tide will not reach to the silence of 
my kitchen; though many are my company in 
the darkness, a hand has been laid upon them 
all. 

My flood-tide! It is well I have kept my 
knowledge. It is Jesus Son of Mary keeps me 
happy at the ebb-tide. 

It is far is the island of the great sea where the 
flood reaches after the ebb: I do not look for 
floods to reach to me after the ebb-tide. 

There is hardly a little place I can know again 
when I see it ; what used to be on the flood-tide 
is all on the ebb to-day! 



Some of the Wonders told at the 
Great Gathering in the East of 
the World by the Voice of Philip 
the Apostle, that was like the 
Laughter of an Army, and with 
that no louder than the Talk of 
Friend in the Ear of Friend; 

I. The Seven Heavens 

AS to the Seven Heavens that are around 
the earth, the first of them is the bright 
cloudy heaven that is the nearest and 
that has shining out of it the moon and the 
scattering of stars. Beyond that are two flaming 
heavens, angels are in them and the break- 
ing loose of winds. Beyond those an ice-cold 

heaven, bluer than any blue, seven times colder 

72 



The Journey of the Sun 73 

than any snow, and it is out of that comes the 
shining of the sun. Two heavens there are 
above that again, bright like flame, and it is out 
of them shine the fiery stars that put fruitf ulness 
in the clouds and in the sea. A high heaven, 
high and fiery, there is above all the rest ; highest 
of all it is, having within it the rolling of the 
skies, and the labour of music, and quires of 
angels. In the belts, now, of the seven heavens 
are hidden the twelve shaking beasts that have 
fiery heads upon their heavenly bodies and that 
are blowing twelve winds about the world. 

In the same belts are sleeping the dragons 
with fiery breath, tower-headed, blemished, that 
give out the crash of the thunders and blow 
lightnings out of their eyes. 



//. The Journey of the Sun 

God made on the fourth day the two and 
seventy kinds of the wandering stars of heaven, 
and the fiery course of the sun that warms the 
world with the sense and the splendour of angels. 



74 The Journey of the Sun 

Twelve plains there are under the body of the 
earth he lightens every night; the fiery sea 
laughs against his journey ; ranks of angels come 
together, welcoming his visit after the bright- 
ness of the night. The first place he brightens is 
the stream beyond the seas, with news of the 
eastern waters. Then he lightens the ocean of 
fire and the seas of sulphur-fire that are round 
about the red countries. 

Then he shines upon the troops of boys in the 
pleasant fields, who send out their cry to heaven 
through dread of the beast that kills thousands 
of armies under the waves of the south. Then 
he shines upon the mountains that have streams 
of fire, on the hosts that protect them in the 
plains. Then the ribs of the great beast shine, 
and the four and twenty champions rise up in 
the valley of pain. He shines over against the 
terrible many-thronged fence in the north that 
has closed around the people of hell. He shines 
on the dark valleys having sorrowful streams 
over their faces. He brightens the ribs of the 



The Nature of the Stars 75 

beast that sends out the many seas around the 
earth ; that sucks in again the many seas till the 
sands on every side are dry. He shines upon 
the many beasts that sleep their sleep of tears 
in the valley of flowers from the first beginning 
of the world; and on the sorrowful tearful plain, 
with the dragons that were set under the mist. 
He shines then upon the bird-flocks singing 
their many tunes in the flower- valleys ; upon the 
shining plains with the wine-flowers that lighten 
the valley; he shines at the last against Adam's 
Paradise till he rises up in the morning from the 
east. There would be many stories now for the 
sun to tell upon his journey, if he had but a 
tongue to give them out. 

///. The Nature of the Stars 

The stars now differ in their nature from one 
another. As to the ten stars of Gaburn, trembl- 
ing takes hold of them, and fiery manes are put 
over their faces, to foretell a plague or a death 
of the people. Other stars there are that bring 



76 The Nature of the Stars 

great heat or great cold or great mists upon 
the earth, others there are that run to en- 
courage the dragons that blow lightnings on 
the world; others of them run to the end of 
fifty years and then ask their time for sleep- 
ing. To the end of seven years they sleep till 
they awake at the shout of the blessed angels, 
and the voices of the dragons of the valley. 
Other runs through the six days and the six 
nights till the coming of the Sunday; at its 
beginning they begin their many kinds of music, 
and they fall asleep again till the coming again 
from heaven of God's Sunday, and with that 
they follow the same round. 



The Call to Bran 



ONE time Bran, son of Febal, was out 
by himself near his dun, and he heard 
music behind him. And it kept always 
after him, and at last he fell asleep with the 
sweetness of the sound. And when he awoke 
from his sleep he saw beside him a branch of 
silver, and it having white blossoms, and the 
whiteness of the silver was the same as the 
whiteness of the blossoms. And he brought 
the branch in his hand into the royal house, and 
when all his people were with him they saw a 
woman with strange clothing standing in the 
house. And she began to make a song for Bran, 
and all the people were looking at her and listen- 
ing to her, and it is what she said: I bring a 
branch of the apple-tree from Emhain, from the 

77 



78 The Call to Bran 

far island around which are the shining horses of 
the Son of Lir. A delight of the eyes is the plain 
where the hosts hold their games: curragh 
racing against chariot in the Silver-White Plain 
to the south. 

There are feet of white bronze under it, 
shining through life and time; a comely level 
land through the length of the world's age, and 
many blossoms falling on it. 

There is an old tree there with blossoms, and 
birds calling from among them; every colour is 
shining there. Delight is common, and music 
in the Gentle Voiced Plain, in the Silver Cloud 
Plain to the south. There is nothing hard or 
rough, but sweet music striking on the ear; 
keening is not used, or treachery, in the tilled 
familiar land. 

To be without grief, without sorrow, without 
death, without any sickness, without weakness; 
that is the sign of Emhain; it is not a common 
wonder that is. 

There is nothing to liken its mists to, the sea 



The Call to Bran 79 

washes the wave against the land; brightness 
falls from its hair. 

Golden chariots in the Plain of the Sea, rising 
up to the sun with the tide; silver chariots and 
bronze chariots on the Plain of Sports. 

It is a day of lasting weather, silver is drop- 
ping on the land ; a pure white cliff on the edge 
of the sea, getting its warmth from the sun. 

The host race over the Plain of Sports; it is 
beautiful and not weak their game is ; death or 
the ebbing of the tide will not come to them in 
the Many-coloured Land. 

There will come at sunrise a fair man, light- 
ing up the level lands; he rides upon the plain 
that is beaten by the waves, he stirs the sea till 
it is like blood. An army will come over the 
clear sea, rowing to the stone that is in sight, 
that has a hundred sounds of music. 

It sings a song to the army; it is not sad 
through the length of time; it increases music 
with hundreds singing together; they do not 
look for death or the ebb-tide. 



The Army of the Sidhe 

LAEGAIRE, son of the king of Con- 
nacht, was out one day with the king 
his father near Loch na-n Ean, the 
Lake of Birds, and the men of Connacht with 
them, and they saw a man coming to them 
through the mist. Long golden-yellow hair he 
had, and at his belt a gold-hilted sword, and in 
his hand two five-barbed darts ; a gold-rimmed 
shield on his back, a five-folded crimson cloak 
about his shoulders, and it is what he said : 

The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of 
the Two Mists ; it is not far from this ; the men 
of its army in good order go out ahead of their 
beautiful king; they march among blue spears, 
white troops of fighters with curled hair. 

They scatter the troops of their enemies, they 
80 



The Army of the Sidhe 81 

destroy every country they make an attack on ; 
they are beautiful in battle, a host with high 
looks, rushing, avenging. 

It is no wonder they to have such strength 
every one of them is the son of a king and a 
queen ; manes of hair they have of the colour of 
gold. 

Their bodies smooth and comely; their eyes 
blue and far-seeing ; their teeth bright like crys- 
tal within their thin red lips. 

White shields they have in their hands, with 
patterns on them of white silver; blue shining 
swords, red horns set with gold. They are good 
at killing men in battle; good at song-making, 
good at chess-playing. 

The most beautiful of plains is the Plain of the 
Two Mists ; it is not far from this place. 

6 



Credhe's Complaint at the Battle 
of the White Strand 

AND Credhe came to where her man was, 
and she keened him and cried over 
him, and she made this complaint : 
The Harbour roars, the harbour roars over 
the rushing race of the Headland of the Two 
Storms, the drowning of the hero of the Lake of 
the Two Dogs, that is what the waves are keen- 
ing on the strand. 

Sweet- voiced is the crane, O sweet- voiced is 
the crane in the marshes of the Ridge of the 
Two Strong Men ; it is she cannot save her nest- 
lings, the wild dog of two colours is taking her 
little ones. 

Pitiful the cry, pitiful the cry the thrush is 
82 



Credhe's Complaint 83 

making in the Pleasant Ridge; sorrowful is the 
cry of the blackbird in Leiter Laeig. 

Sorrowful the call, O sorrowful the call of the 
deer in the Ridge of Two Lights; the doe is 
lying dead in Druim Silenn, the mighty stag 
cries after her. 

Sorrowful to me, O sorrowful to me the death 
of the hero that lay beside me; the son of the 
woman of the Wood of the Two Thickets, to be 
with a bunch of grass under his head. 

Sore to me, O sore to me Cael to be a dead 
man beside me, the waves to have gone over his 
white body; it is his pleasantness that has put 
my wits astray. 

A woeful shout, O a woeful shout the waves 
are making on the strand ; they that took hold of 
comely Cael, a pity it is he went to meet them. 

A woeful crash, O a woeful crash the waves 
are making on the strand to the north, breaking 
against the smooth rock, crying after Cael now 
he is gone. 

A sorrowful fight, O a sorrowful fight, the sea 



84 Credhe's Complaint 

is making with the strand to the north; my 
beauty is lessened ; the end of my life is measured. 

A song of grief, a song of grief is made by 
the waves of Tulcha Leis ; all I had is gone since 
this story came to me. Since the son of Crim- 
thann is drowned I will love no one after him 
for ever; many a king fell by his hand; his shield 
never cried out in the battle. 

After she had made that complaint Credhe 
laid herself down beside Cael and died for grief 
after him. And they were put in the one grave, 
and it was Caoilte raised the stone over them. 



A Sleepy Song that Grania used to 
be singing over Diarmuid the 
Time they were wandering and 
hiding from Finn 

SLEEP a little, a little little, for there is 
nothing at all to fear, Diarmuid grandson 
of Duibhne; sleep here soundly, Diar- 
muid to whom I have given my love. It is I 
will keep watch for you, grandchild of shapely 
Duibhne; sleep a little, a blessing on you, beside 
the well of the strong field ; my lamb from above 
the lake, from the banks of the strong streams. 

Let your sleep be like the sleep in the North of 
fair comely Fionnchadh of Ess Ruadh, the time 
he took Slaine with bravery as we think, in spite 

of Failbhe of the Hard Head. 

85 



86 Grania's Sleepy Song 

Let your sleep be like the sleep in the West of 
Aine daughter of Galian, the time she went on a 
journey in the night with Dubhthach from 
Dorinis, by the light of torches. 

Let your sleep be like the sleep in the East of 
Deaghadh the proud, the brave fighter, the time 
he took Coincheann, daughter of Binn, in spite 
of fierce Decheall of Duibhreann. 

O heart of the valour of the world to the west 
of Greece, my heart will go near to breaking if I 
do not see you every day. The parting of us 
two will be the parting of two children of the 
one house; it will be the parting of life from the 
body, Diarmuid. 



Her Song to Rouse Him from Sleep 

THE stag to the east is not asleep, he does 
not stop from bellowing; though he is 
in the woods of the blackbirds, sleep is 
not in his mind ; the hornless doe is not asleep, 
crying after her speckled fawn ; she is going over 
the bushes, she does not sleep in her home. 

The cuckoo is not asleep, the thrush is not 
asleep, the tops of the trees are a noisy place; 
the duck is not asleep, she is made ready for 
good swimming; the bog-lark is not asleep to- 
night on the high stormy bogs ; the sound of her 
clear voice is sweet ; she is not sleeping between 
the streams. 



87 



Her Lament for His Death 

THEN when Grania was certain of Diar- 
muid' s death she gave out a long very 
pitiful cry that was heard through the 
whole place, and her women and her people 
came to her, and asked what ailed her to give 
a cry like that. And she told them how Diar- 
muid had come to his death by the Boar of Beinn 
Gulbain in the hunt Finn had made. When her 
people heard that, they gave three great heavy 
cries in the same way, that were heard in the 
clouds and the waste places of the sky. And 
then Grania bade the five hundred that she had 
for household to go to Beinn Gulbain for the 
body of Diarmuid, and when they were bringing 
it back, she went out to meet them, and they 
put down the body of Diarmuid, and it is what 



Her Lament for His Death 89 

she said: I am your wife, beautiful Diarmuid, 
the man I would do no hurt to ; it is sorrowful I 
am after you to-night. 

I am looking at the hawk and the hound my 
secret love used to be hunting with; she that 
loved the three, let her be put in the grave with 
Diarmuid. 

Let us be glad to-night, let us make all wel- 
come to-night, let us be open-handed to-night, 
since we are sitting by the body of a king. 

And Diarmuid, she said, it is a hard bed 
Finn has given you, to be lying on the stones 
and to be wet with the rain. Ochone! she said, 
your blue eyes to be without sight, you that 
were friendly and generous and pursuing. O 
love ! O Diarmuid ! it is a pity it is he sent you 
to your death. 

You were a champion of the men of Ireland, 
their prop in the middle of the fight; you were 
the head of every battle; your ways were glad 
and pleasant. 

It is sorrowful I am, without mirth, without 



90 Her Lament for His Death 

light, but only sadness and grief and long dying ; 
your harp used to be sweet to me, it wakened 
my heart to gladness. Now my courage is 
fallen down, I not to hear you but to be always 
remembering your ways. Och! my grief is 
going through me. 

A thousand curses on the day when Grania 
gave you her love, that put Finn of the princes 
from his wits ; it is a sorrowful story your death 
is to-day. 

You were the man was best of the Fenians, 
beautiful Diarmuid, that women loved. It is 
dark your dwelling-place is under the sod, it is 
mournful and cold your bed is; it is pleasant 
your laugh was to-day ; you were my happiness, 
Diarmuid. 



The Parting of Goll and His Wife 

AND when Goll knew Finn to be watch- 
ing for his life he made no attempt 
to escape but stopped where he was, 
without food, without drink, and he blinded 
with the sand that was blowing into his eyes. 

And his wife came to a rock where she could 
speak with him, and she called to him to come 
to her. ' ' Come over to me, ' ' she said ; ' ' and it is 
a pity you to be blinded where you are, on the 
rocks of the waste sea, with no drink but the 
salt water, a man that was first in every fight. 
And come now to be sleeping beside me," she 
said ; ' ' and in place of the hard sea-water I will 
nourish you from my own breast, and it is I will 
do your healing," she said; ''for it is seven years 

since you wedded with me, and from that night 

91 



92 Parting of Goll and His Wife 

to this night I never got a hard word from you. 
And the gold of your hair is my desire for ever/' 
she said, "and do not stop withering there like 
an herb in the winter-time, and my heart black 
with grief within me." 

But Goll would not leave the spot where he 
was for all she could say. ' ' It is best as it is, ' ' he 
said, " and I never took the advice of a woman 
east or west, and I never will take it. And O 
sweet-voiced queen, " he said, "what ails you to 
be fretting after me; and remember now your 
silver and your gold, and your silks and stuffs, 
and remember the seven hounds I gave you at 
Cruadh Ceirrge, and every one of them without 
slackness till he has killed the deer. And do 
not be crying tears after me, queen with the 
white hands, V he said; "but remember your 
constant lover, Aodh, the son of the best woman 
of the world, that came out from Spain asking 
for you, and that I fought at Corcar-an-Deirg. 
And go to him now," he said, "for it is bad 
when a woman is in want of a good man." 



Parting of Goll and His Wife 93 

And he lay down on the rocks, and at the end 
of twelve days he died. And his wife keened 
him there, and made a great lamentation for her 
husband that had such a great name, and that 
was the second best of the Fenians of Ireland. 



The Death of Osgar 

AND after a while, at noonday, they saw 
Finn coming towards them, and what 
was left of the Sun-banner raised on a 
spear-shaft. All of them saluted Finn then, but 
he made no answer, and he came up to the hill 
where Osgar was. And when Osgar saw him 
coming he saluted him, and he said, ' ' I have got 
my desire in death, Finn of the sharp arms." 
And Finn said, "It is worse the way you were, 
my son, on the day of the battle at Ben Edair, 
when the wild geese could swim on your breast, 
and it was my hand that gave you healing." 
"There can no healing be done for me now for 
ever," said Osgar, "since the King of Ireland 
put the spear of seven spells through my body." 

94 



The Death of Osgar 95 

And Finn said, "it is a pity it was not I myself 
fell in sunny scarce Gabhra, and you going east 
and west at the head of the Fenians." "And 
if it was yourself fell in the battle," said Osgar, 
"you would not hear me keening after you; for 
no man ever knew any heart in me," he said, 
"but a heart of twisted horn, and it covered 
with iron. But the howling of the dogs beside 
me, " he said, "and the keening of the old fight- 
ing men and the crying of the women one after 
another, those are the things that are vexing 
me." And Finn said: "child of my child, calf 
of my calf, white and slender, it is a pity the 
way you are. And my heart is starting like a 
deer," he said, "and I am weak after you and 
after the Fenians of Ireland. And misfortune 
has followed us," he said, "and farewell now to 
battles and to a great name, and farewell to 
taking tributes ; for every good thing I ever had 
is gone from me now, " he said. And when Os- 
gar heard those words he stretched out his 
hands, and his eyelids closed. And Finn turned 



96 The Death of Osgar 

away from the rest, and he cried tears down; 
and he never shed a tear through the whole 
length of his lifetime but only for Osgar and for 
Bran. 



Oisin's Vision 

I SAW the household of Finn ; it was not the 
household of a soft race ; I had a vision of 
that man yesterday. 
I saw the household of the High King, he with 
the brown sweet- voiced son ; I never saw a better 
man. 

I saw the household of Finn; no one saw it as 
I saw it; I saw Finn with the sword, Mac an 
Luin. Och ! it was sorrowful to see it. 

I cannot tell out every harm that is on my 
head; free us from our trouble for ever; I have 
seen the household of Finn. 



97 



His Praise of Finn 

IT is a week from yesterday I last saw Finn ; 
I never saw a braver man. A king of 
heavy blows; my law, my adviser, my 
sense and my wisdom, prince and poet, braver 
than kings, King of the Fenians, brave in all 
countries; golden salmon of the sea, clean hawk 
of the air, rightly taught, avoiding lies; strong 
in his doings, a right judge, ready in courage, 
a high messenger in bravery and in music. 

His skin lime- white, his hair golden ; ready to 
work, gentle to women; his great green vessels 
full of rough sharp wine. It is rich the king was, 
the head of his people. 

Seven sides Finn's house had, and seven score 

shields on every side. Fifty fighting men he had 

about him having woollen cloaks; ten bright 

98 



His Praise of Finn 99 

drinking-cups in his hall, ten blue vessels, ten 
golden horns. 

It is a good household Finn had, without 
grudging, without lust, without vain boasting, 
without chattering, without any slur on any one 
of the Fenians. Finn never refused any man: 
he never put away any one that came to his 
house. If the brown leaves falling in the woods 
were gold, if the white waves were silver, Finn 
would have given away the whole of it. 



Oisin after the Fenians 

NOW my strength is gone from me, I 
that was adviser to the Fenians, my 
whole body is tired to-night, my 
hands, my feet, and my head; tired, tired, 
tired. 

It is bad the way I am after Finn of the 
Fenians; since he is gone away, every good is 
behind me. 

Without great people, without mannerly 
ways; it is sorrowful I am after our king that 
is gone. 

I am a shaking tree, my leaves gone from me ; 
an empty nut, a horse without a bridle; a people 
without a dwelling-place, I Oisin, son of Finn. 

It is long the clouds are over me to-night ! it is 

IOO 



Oisin after the Fenians 101 

long last night was; although this day is long, 
yesterday was longer again to me; every day 
that comes is long to me. 

That is not the way I used to be, without 
fighting, without battles, without learning feats, 
without young girls, without music, without 
harps, without bruising bones, without great 
deeds; without increase of learning, without 
generosity, without drinking at feasts, without 
courting, without hunting, the two trades I was 
used to; without going out to battle. Ochone! 
the want of them is sorrowful to me. 

No hunting of deer or stag, it is not like that I 
would wish to be; no leashes for our hounds, no 
hounds; it is long the clouds are over me to- 
night ! 

Without rising up to do bravery as we were 
used, without playing as we had a mind; with- 
out swimming of our fighting men in the lake; 
it is long the clouds are over me to-night ! 

There is no one at all in the world the way 
I am ; it is a pity the way I am ; an old man 



102 Olsin after the Fenians 

dragging stones. It is long the clouds are over 
me to-night ! 

I am the last of the Fenians, great Oisin, son 
of Finn, listening to the voice of bells; it is long 
the clouds are over me to-night ! 



The Foretelling of Cathbad the 
Druid at Deirdre' s Birth 

LET Deirdre be her name : harm will come 
through her. She will be fair, comely, 
bright-haired : heroes will fight for her, 
and kings go seeking for her. 

O Deirdre, on whose account many shall weep, 
on whose account many women shall be envious, 
there will be trouble on Ulster for your sake, 
fair daughter of Fedlimid. 

Many will be jealous of your face, O flame of 
beauty; for your sake heroes shall go to exile. 
For your sake deeds of anger shall be done in 
Emain; there is harm in your face, for it will 
bring banishment and death on the sons of 

kings. 

103 



104 Foretelling at Deirdre's Birth 

In your fate, O beautiful child, are wounds 
and ill-doings and shedding of blood. 

You will have a little grave apart to }'Ourself ; 
you will be a tale of wonder for ever, Deirdre. 



Deirdre's Lament for the Sons of 
Usnach 

AS for Deirdre, she cried pitifully, wearily, 
and tore her fair hair, and she was 
talking of the sons of Usnach, and of 
Alban, and it is what she said : 

A blessing eastward to Alban from me; good 
is the sight of her bays and valleys, pleasant was 
it to sit on the slopes of her hills, where the sons 
of Usnach used to be hunting. 

One day, when the nobles of Alban were 
drinking with the sons of Usnach, Naoise gave a 
kiss secretly to the daughter of the lord of Dun- 
treon. He sent her a frightened deer, wild, and 
a fawn at its foot; and he went to visit her 

coming home from the troops of Inverness. 

105 



106 Lament for the Sons of Usnach 

When myself heard that, my head filled full of 
jealousy; I put my boat on the waves, it was 
the same to me to live or to die. They followed 
me swimming, Ainnle and Ardan, that never 
said a lie; they turned me back again, two that 
would give battle to a hundred. Naoise gave 
me his true word, he swore three times with his 
arms as witness, he would never put vexation 
on me again, until he would go from me to the 
armies of the dead. 

Och ! if she knew to-night, Naoise to be under 
a covering of clay, it is she would cry her fill, 
and it is I would cry along with her! 

After that Deirdre lay down by the grave, 
and they were digging earth from it, and she 
made this lament after the sons of Usnach : 

Long is the day without the sons of Usnach; 
it was never wearisome to be in their company ; 
sons of a king that entertained exiles ; three lions 
of the Hill of the Cave. 

Three darlings of the women of Britain; 
three hawks of Slieve Cuilenn; sons of a king 



Lament for the Sons of Usnach 107 

served by valour, to whom warriors did 
obedience. 

Three heroes not good at homage; their fall is 
a cause of sorrow; three sons of the sister of a 
king ; three props of the army of Cuailgne. 

The High King of Ulster, my first betrothed, 
I forsook for love of Naoise ; short my life will be 
after him ; I will make keening at their burial. 

That I would live after Naoise let no one think 
on the earth ; I will not go on living after Ainnle 
and after Ardan. 

After them I myself will not live; three that 
would leap through the midst of battle; since 
my beloved is gone from me I will cry my fill 
over his grave. 

0, young man, digging the new grave, do not 
make the grave narrow; I will be along with 
them in the grave, making lamentations and 
ochones ! 

Many the hardship I met with along with the 
three heroes; I suffered want of home, want of 
fire, it is myself that used not to be troubled. 



108 Lament for the Sons of Usnach 

Their three shields and their spears made a 
bed for me often. 0, young man, put their three 
swords close over their grave ! 

Their three hounds, their three hawks, will be 
from this time without huntsmen ; three aids of 
every battle; three pupils of Conall Cearnach. 

The three leashes of those three hounds have 
brought a sigh from my heart ; it is I had the care 
of them, the sight of them is a cause of grief. 

I was never one day alone to the day of the 
making of this grave, though it is often that 
myself and yourselves were in loneliness. 

My sight is gone from me with looking at the 
grave of Naoise ; it is short till my life will leave 
me, and those who would have keened me do not 
live. 

Since it is through me they were betrayed I 
will be tired out with sorrow; it is a pity I was 
not in the earth before the sons of Usnach were 
killed. 

Sorrowful was my journey with Fergus, be- 
traying me to the Red Branch ; we were deceived 



Lament for the Sons of Usnach 109 

all together with his sweet, flowery words. I 
left the delights of Ulster for the three heroes 
that were bravest; my life will not be long, I 
myself am alone after them. 

I am Deirdre without gladness, and I at the 
end of my life; since it is grief to be without 
them, I myself will not be long after them ! 



Enter's Lament for Cuchulain 

AND Emer took the head of Cuchulain 
in her hands, and she washed it clean, 
and put a silk cloth about it, and she 
held it to her breast, and she began to cry- 
heavily over it, and she made this complaint : 

Och, head ! Ochone, O head ! you gave death 
to great heroes, to many hundreds; my head 
will lie in the same grave, the one stone will be 
made for both of us. 

Och, hand! Ochone, hand, that was once 
gentle. It is often it was put under my head; 
it is dear that hand was to me. 

Dear mouth! Ochone, kind mouth that was 
sweet- voiced telling stories; since the time love 
first came on your face, you never refused either 
weak or strong. 



Enter's Lament for Cuchulain in 

Dear the man, dear the man, that would kill 
the whole of a great army ; dear his cold bright 
hair, and dear his bright cheeks ! 

Dear the king, dear the king, that never gave 
a refusal to any ; thirty days it is to-night since 
my body lay beside your body. 

Och, two spears ! Ochone, two spears ! Och, 
shield ! Och, deadly sword ! Let them be given, 
to Conall of the battles; there was never any 
wage given the like of that. 

I am glad, I am glad, Cuchulain of Muir- 
themne, I never brought red shame on your 
face, for any unfaithfulness against you. 

Happy are they, happy are they, who will 
never hear the cuckoo again for ever, now that 
the Hound has died from us. 

I am carried away like a branch on the stream ; 
I will not bind up my hair to-day. From this 
day I have nothing to say that is better than 
Ochone! ''And oh! my love," she said, "we 
were often in one another's company, and it was 
happy for us ; for if the world had been searched 



H2 Enter's Lament for Cuchulain 

from the rising of the sun to sunset, the like 
would never have been found in one place, of 
the Black Sainglain and the Grey of Macha, and 
Laeg the chariot-driver, and myself and Cuchu- 
lain. And it is breaking my heart is in my body, 
to be listening to the pity and the sorrowing of 
women and men, and the harsh crying of the 
young men of Ulster keening Cuchulain. " 
And after that Emer bade Conall to make a 
wide, very deep grave for Cuchulain; and she 
laid herself down beside her gentle comrade, 
and she put her mouth to his mouth, and she 
said: "Love of my life, my friend, my sweet- 
heart, my one choice of the men of the earth, 
many is the woman, wed or unwed, envied me 
till to-day ; and now I will not stay living after 
you." 



fk Selection from the 
Catalogue of 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 



Complete Catalogue sent 
OR applioatiom 



Irish Folk-History Plays 

By 
LADY GREGORY 

First Series. The Tragedies 
GRANIA KINGORA DERVORGILLA 

Second Series. The Tragic Comedies 

THE CANAVANS THE WHITE COCKADE 

THE DELIVERER 

2 vols. Each, $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65 

Lady Gregory has preferred going for her material to the tra- 
ditional folk-history rather than to the authorized printed versions, 
and she has been able, in so doing, to make her plays more living. 
One of these, Klncora, telling of Brian Boru, who reigned in the 
year iooo, evoked such keen local interest that an old farmer 
travelled from the neighborhood of Kincora to see it acted in 
Dublin. 

The story of Grania, on which Lady Gregory has founded one 
of these plays, was taken entirely from tradition. Grania was a 
beautiful young woman and was to have been married to Finn, the 
great leader of the Fenians; but before the marriage, she went 
away from the bridegroom with his handsome young kinsman, 
Diarmuid. After many years, when Diarmuid had died (and Finn 
had a hand in his death), she went back to Finn and became his 
queen. 

Another of Lady Gregory's plays, The Canavans dealt with 
the stormy times of Queen Elizabeth, whose memory is a horror in 
Ireland second only to that of Cromwell. 

The White Cockade is founded on a tradition of King James 
having escaped from Ireland after the battle of the Boyne in a wine 
barrel. 

The choice of folk history rather than written history gives a 
freshness of treatment and elasticity of material which made the 
late J. M. Synge say that " Lady Gregory's method had brought 
back the possibility of writing historic plays." 

All these plays, except Grania, which has not yet been staged, 
have been very successfully performed in Ireland. They are written 
in the dialect of Kiltartan, which had already become familiar to 
readers of Lady Gregory's books. 



G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 



New Comedies 

By 
LADY GREGORY 

The Bogie Men— The Full Moon— Coats 
Darner's Gold — McDonough's Wife 

6°. With Portrait in Photogravure. $150 net By mail, $165 

The plays have been acted with great success 
by the Abbey Company, and have been highly 
extolled by appreciative audiences and an en- 
thusiastic press. They are distinguished by a 
humor of unchallenged originality. 

One of the plays in the collection, " Coats," 
depends for its plot upon the rivalry of two 
editors, each of whom has written an obituary 
notice of the other. The dialogue is full of 
crisp humor. "McDonough's Wife," another 
drama that appears in the volume, is based on a 
legend, and explains how a whole town rendered 
honor against its will. * ' The Bogie Men ' ' has as 
its underlying situation an amusing misunder- 
standing of two chimney-sweeps. The wit and 
absurdity of the dialogue are in Lady Gregory's 
best vein. " Darner's Gold " contains the story 
of a miser beset by his gold-hungry relations. 
Their hopes and plans are upset by one they had 
believed to be of the simple of the world, but 
who confounds the Wisdom of the Wise. " The 
Full Moon " presents a little comedy enacted on 
an Irish railway station. It is characterized by 
humor of an original and delightful character 
and repartee that is distinctly clever. 

G. P. PUTNAM'S SONS 

NEW YORK LONDON 



The Golden Apple 

A Killartan Play for Children 

By 
Lady Gregory 

Author of " Seven Short Plays " 

"Our Irish Theatre" 
"Irish Folk-History Plays, " etc. 

8° Eight full-page Illustrations in color 
$1.25 net. 

This play deals with the adventures 
of the King of Ireland's son, who goes 
in search of the Golden Apple of Heal- 
ing. The scenes are laid in the Witch's 
Garden, the Giant's House, the Wood 
of Wonders, and the King of Ireland's 
Room. It is both humorous and lyrical, 
and should please children and their 
elders, alike. The colored illustrations 
have the same old faery-tale air as the 
play itself. 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



Seven Short Plays 

By 

Lady Gregory 

Author of "New Comedies," "Our Irish Theatre," etc 

12°. $1.50 net. By mail, $1.65 

The plays in this volume are the following: 
Spreading the News, Hyacinth Halvey, The 
Rising of the Moon, The Jackdaw, The Work*' 
house Ward, The Travelling Man, The Gaol Gate, 
The volume also contains music for the songs in 
the plays and notes explaining the conception of 
the plays. 

Among the three great exponents of the 
modern Celtic movement in Ireland, Lady 
Gregory holds an unusual place. It is she from 
whom came the chief historical impulse which 
resulted in the re-creation for the present 
generation of the elemental poetry of early 
Ireland, its wild disorders, its loves and hates — 
all the passionate light and shadow of that fierce 
and splendid race. 

G. P. Putnam's Sons 

New York London 



